Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-28, 23:56:

underestimating their use for retrogaming. Given the ever increasing cost of old hardware

Depends how much you play retro games, once a week for an hour or daily? With current electricity prices P4 setup (easy constant 150-200W in DOS) will cost you more than whole 486/Pentium in no time 😀

Agree about the electric price but Hehee I just played 3 maps of BF1942 on the old XP box because got bored with Age of Empire HD edition on the new one.
Yeah it draws 200 watts + compared to the 40 watt+ newer box with AOE HD but it was fun 😀
Oh and yes I turned off the old box 😁

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-04-29, 04:05:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-28, 23:56:

underestimating their use for retrogaming. Given the ever increasing cost of old hardware

Depends how much you play retro games, once a week for an hour or daily? With current electricity prices P4 setup (easy constant 150-200W in DOS) will cost you more than whole 486/Pentium in no time 😀

Depends on the P4 though. I'm running a Cedar Mill with a TDP of 65W. Roughly on part with the earlier Northwood's or the Athlon XP/64's of that era.

I even performed a 30 minute stress test with Prime95 and the peak reported temp was 45C.

I feel like the power hungry rep is somewhat misplaced and contributes to these processors being underrated.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 04:46:

Depends on the P4 though. I'm running a Cedar Mill with a TDP of 65W.
I feel like the power hungry rep is somewhat misplaced and contributes to these processors being underrated.

Put the system on a socket power meter and run some games in DOS, you will be surprised.

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-04-29, 05:01:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 04:46:

Depends on the P4 though. I'm running a Cedar Mill with a TDP of 65W.
I feel like the power hungry rep is somewhat misplaced and contributes to these processors being underrated.

Put the system on a socket power meter and run some games in DOS, you will be surprised.

I am admittedly curious, but unfortunately I don't own such a power meter. I looked up some local hardware stores and they don't appear to be sold around here, either.

those start at $10 on amazon 😀
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_ ... 2631).html
64TDP but 79W power draw 😀 and thats just the CPU. I dont know what the deal is with two power profiles 775_VR_CONFIG_05A 775_VR_CONFIG_06, maybe depends on motherboard capabilities with never ones allowing for more juice before throttling?
Back then things like GPUs didnt have power saving and ran full tilt, same goes for CPU in DOS, it will run at full speed full power consumption.
Thats why P4 to play 486 era games might not be economical long run. 2.5 hours per day with California electricity prices comes to around $50. Throw in CRT (100W) and we are at $85. Then consider you have 200W heater in your room so add $ for aircon :]

I've been up to quite many things lately.
- Finished the Rhino9-build. SB32, 15GB HDD, Matrox + Voodoo1 (might get an upgrade to V2). 233mmx, 160GB ram. This was a PITA, it did NOT fit in the baby-AT case I had chosen, and made motherboard standoffs for
- Relocated the Kaimei KM-51 (iirc) with P166mmx to another case (to make room for the Rhino9). This has a 6GB (?) HDD and will need a reinstall. I guess I'll sell this with.
- Checked the contents of a P4S533MX-equipped P4. This is a 2,53GHz P4 with SIS chipset and 512MB ram. I'll throw in a suitable Geforce card, HDD and 1GB ram (eventually). Win98+XP if possible.
- Checked the contents of a MSI 865PE-neo2 equipped P4. This is a 3GHz P4. And it puts out some heat. I'll throw in a 7600GS (or GT when recapped), SSD, X-FI. Win98+XP if possible.
Although the latest has been a PITA to install. The SSD is very slow, but I guess I should use quick format to have it in a reasonable time. This is supposed to be my main rig - but I'm contemplating whether the P3-1.4S would be a better choice (on a VIA chipset though) heat-wise.

Maeslin wrote on 2014-07-12, 19:14:

How 'retro' are we talking about here? 😁

Carpentry, with no power tools. Rebuilding an already very reinforced fence that got snapped right in half during the last hurricane. Hammer, chisel and pencil to make mortise and tenon joints in 4x4"s.

If that sort of stuff counts, I was moving 9 wheelbarrow loads of compost into our community garden, then helping dig some post holes for a retaining wall made with repurposed shipping pallets 😉

But after that (and a good shower) I was in the retro cave and moved my DOS and Win3.1 systems from my current VGA+2x PS/2 KVM switch to a separate KVM swich with DIN and serial as well, combined with a built-in serial to PS/2 converter. Biggest reason was that my CRT monitor was too far from the KVM switch to reach it with the built-in cable (and no easy way to move either), which meant I needed an extension cable, which was killing for image quality. However the serial converter is very nice to have - although my XT's not playing nice with it yet (I suspect some issue with the I/O card, but haven't had time to get to the bottom of it).

Added bonus is that I got the MPU-401AT in the XT working - it seems to have been conflicting with some setting on the (undocumented) FDC/IO card. So no mouse yet in SQ3, but all the cute MT-32 messages and glorious music. Impressive - although I quickly recalled how I actually hated the old Sierra adventures, plus it runs very slowly on the XT, with loading times so long I thought the machine was hanging. So I ran Laser Squad instead - no MT-32 messages and less impressive music, but actually fun to play, although I'd have preferred having a mouse.

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-04-29, 06:41:

Back then things like GPUs didnt have power saving and ran full tilt, same goes for CPU in DOS, it will run at full speed full power consumption.
Thats why P4 to play 486 era games might not be economical long run. 2.5 hours per day with California electricity prices comes to around $50. Throw in CRT (100W) and we are at $85. Then consider you have 200W heater in your room so add $ for aircon :]

This is one those YMWV situations. Personally I don't live in California, don't use my system 2.5 hours a day, and current ambient temps are way too cold to run an A/C...

We also only really care about the incremental power consumption, not total power. For example, that CRT monitor will still consume the same power regardless of whether I'm using it with a P4 or a real 486. So the CRT is irrelevant here.

To do this properly we'd need to first establish a baseline energy consumption / cost. From that we could then determine the incremental increase of a P4 system.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 13:19:

[...]

To do this properly we'd need to first establish a baseline energy consumption / cost. From that we could then determine the incremental increase of a P4 system.

A 486 system probably uses about 30W, although YMMV depending on how many drives etc it has running. Going by these figures, a 3GHz P4 system uses about 112W idle (and more in load, but running native DOS is probably very near idle), so you're talking ballpark figure of incremental increase of 80W absolute or 266% relatively.

That's quite a lot of heat in summer. The question of impact is how long you'll be playing. 80W for half an hour isn't going to break the bank or cook the bedroom, but an 8-hour session will burn the better part of a kWh extra, which adds up.

dionb wrote on 2024-04-29, 14:04:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 13:19:

[...]

To do this properly we'd need to first establish a baseline energy consumption / cost. From that we could then determine the incremental increase of a P4 system.

A 486 system probably uses about 30W, although YMMV depending on how many drives etc it has running. Going by these figures, a 3GHz P4 system uses about 112W idle (and more in load, but running native DOS is probably very near idle), so you're talking ballpark figure of incremental increase of 80W absolute or 266% relatively.

From what I understand, DOS does actually put a lot of stress on the CPU (e.g. running at 100%) since it doesn't have any power management capabilities to put the CPU in idle. So DOS power consumption would be higher than idle.

However, the highlighted processor in those charts is the Pentium 4 570 (Prescott). It has a TDP of 115W and max power consumption of 151W. This is much higher than the CPU I am using, which is a D0 Cedar Mill processor (65W TDP / 79W max). This is why I made the point earlier that not all Pentium 4 processors are created equal. The processor I am using is probably closer in consumption to the Athlon 64 processors in the same charts.

Another point of consideration is that for my own build, I don't use it solely for DOS. Most of my usage so far has been for Win 98 gaming. The intent of my build is to cover a range of gaming from late 80s/early 90s up to 2002 or so.

If we really wanted to do a total cost of ownership analysis, we'd have to look at the respective build and usage costs of multiple systems versus something like this single P4 build.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 05:41:

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-04-29, 05:01:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 04:46:

Depends on the P4 though. I'm running a Cedar Mill with a TDP of 65W.
I feel like the power hungry rep is somewhat misplaced and contributes to these processors being underrated.

Put the system on a socket power meter and run some games in DOS, you will be surprised.

I am admittedly curious, but unfortunately I don't own such a power meter. I looked up some local hardware stores and they don't appear to be sold around here, either.

If you've got an AC clamp meter, you can get a cheap short power cord that's one of the moulded OOO flat types, separate the conductors with a blunt-sharp object (i.e. pointy enough to get in there, but blunt enough not to slice into the insulation) and use the clamp around the live conductor to see instantaneous AMP draw (while it's idling or in the middle of heavy load benchmark or something) and then derive the power from P=IV ... in theory this has better accuracy than the cheapy power meters for one time measurements, but doesn't of course track power over time like some of those do.

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-04-29, 06:41:

2.5 hours per day with California electricity prices comes to around $50. Throw in CRT (100W) and we are at $85.

😮 my quick and rough calculations say that if ~150W for 2.5h cost $50 and 100W for 2.5h cost $35, the price of 1KWh is approximately $140. Is it really that expensive? Unless I screwed up the calculations (entirely possible) my household's monthly bill would be something like $70,000 with these prices!

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 14:40:

From what I understand, DOS does actually put a lot of stress on the CPU (e.g. running at 100%) since it doesn't have any power management capabilities to put the CPU in idle. So DOS power consumption would be higher than idle.

Yes, this is my experience as well - running a mostly static 2D Master of Orion II on my Pentium4 (s478/Northwood) runs my CPU at full tilt 100% all the time.
(...and currently cooking it at around 60 Celsius according to HWinfo, I probably have to replace the 20year old ArcticSilver paste there real soon!)

@konc: it is probably meant as 2,5hrs per day for a full year, 365 days - then it makes more sense, seeing the current prices being around 30cents in California.

bestemor wrote on 2024-04-29, 15:22:

@konc: it is probably meant as 2,5hrs per day for a full year, 365 days - then it makes more sense, seeing the current prices being around 30cents in California.

Oh of course, this makes much more sense!

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-29, 14:40:

[...]

From what I understand, DOS does actually put a lot of stress on the CPU (e.g. running at 100%) since it doesn't have any power management capabilities to put the CPU in idle. So DOS power consumption would be higher than idle.

However, the highlighted processor in those charts is the Pentium 4 570 (Prescott). It has a TDP of 115W and max power consumption of 151W. This is much higher than the CPU I am using, which is a D0 Cedar Mill processor (65W TDP / 79W max). This is why I made the point earlier that not all Pentium 4 processors are created equal. The processor I am using is probably closer in consumption to the Athlon 64 processors in the same charts.

Which starts at 114W under load, all of 2W higher than the Idle P4 Prescott. So ballpark figures are the same or worse (if higher than the 3500+)

Another point of consideration is that for my own build, I don't use it solely for DOS. Most of my usage so far has been for Win 98 gaming. The intent of my build is to cover a range of gaming from late 80s/early 90s up to 2002 or so.

If we really wanted to do a total cost of ownership analysis, we'd have to look at the respective build and usage costs of multiple systems versus something like this single P4 build.

Depends what your prime consideration is. Mine is heat, pure and simple. Northern European houses are built to keep the cold out and the heat in, which is great in winter, but pretty lousy in summer when it gets hot. This summer I'm prepared, with an extra ventilation system in my 'work' room to suck the heat out from my daily driver PC (Ryzen with GTX2060), from above my monitors (3x 24" TFT, 1x 15" CRT) and from my soldering station (more for the fumes than the heat admittedly). I'm fortunate enough in life not to have to worry about the price of a kWh more or less, but I don't like sweating and I even though I have air conditioning, I prefer not to use it if I can avoid it. Plus I already have piles of computer components, so not so much interested in TCO or purchase price, purely in what dumps Watts into my room and what doesn't. Fortunately my era is somewhat older than these P4/Athlon64 monsters and I run DOS on an underclocked P3 Coppermine, or on 486-33 or XT. If I were to do an early 2000s build though, I'd do it with Pentium M for the max performance per Watt (and pretty respectable performance vs hothead P4s too).

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-29, 15:08:

If you've got an AC clamp meter, you can get a cheap short power cord that's one of the moulded OOO flat types, separate the conductors with a blunt-sharp object (i.e. pointy enough to get in there, but blunt enough not to slice into the insulation) and use the clamp around the live conductor to see instantaneous AMP draw (while it's idling or in the middle of heavy load benchmark or something) and then derive the power from P=IV ... in theory this has better accuracy than the cheapy power meters for one time measurements, but doesn't of course track power over time like some of those do.

No clamp meter either unfortunately. I do have a couple Fluke multimeters, but that's it.

dionb wrote on 2024-04-29, 15:49:

Depends what your prime consideration is. Mine is heat, pure and simple. Northern European houses are built to keep the cold out and the heat in, which is great in winter, but pretty lousy in summer when it gets hot. This summer I'm prepared, with an extra ventilation system in my 'work' room to suck the heat out from my daily driver PC (Ryzen with GTX2060), from above my monitors (3x 24" TFT, 1x 15" CRT) and from my soldering station (more for the fumes than the heat admittedly). I'm fortunate enough in life not to have to worry about the price of a kWh more or less, but I don't like sweating and I even though I have air conditioning, I prefer not to use it if I can avoid it. Plus I already have piles of computer components, so not so much interested in TCO or purchase price, purely in what dumps Watts into my room and what doesn't. Fortunately my era is somewhat older than these P4/Athlon64 monsters and I run DOS on an underclocked P3 Coppermine, or on 486-33 or XT. If I were to do an early 2000s build though, I'd do it with Pentium M for the max performance per Watt (and pretty respectable performance vs hothead P4s too).

This is a good point. Everyone's priorities and relative circumstances are going to be different.

I'm in Canada and while summers can get toasty here, it's usually only an issue for a few months of the year. Most of the year heat is a non-factor.

FWIW, my prime consideration is convenience. I currently only have space for a few dedicated setups. Part of my impetus for this P4 build was to see how broad a gaming period I could cover with a single PC.

I'm hoping that between this P4 build, my 486 DX-33 (esp. once the Tandy sound card releases) and my 'Ultimate' XP PC, I can cover ~25 years of gaming with three dedicated rigs.

When I got this card one of the caps was damaged, so I replaced all of them with these beautiful ELNA caps.